23 January 2012

"I had a dream, which was not all a dream.The bright sun was extinguished, and the starsDid wander darkling in the eternal space,Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earthSwung blind and blackening in the moonless air;Morn came and went -and came, and brought no day,And men forgot their passions in the dreadOf this their desolation; and all heartsWere chilled into a selfish prayer for light;And they did live by watchfires -and the thrones,The palaces of crowned kings -the huts,The habitations of all things which dwell,Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,And men were gathered round their blazing homesTo look once more into each other's face;Happy were those which dwelt within the eyeOf the volcanoes, and their mountain-torch;A fearful hope was all the world contained;Forests were set on fire -but hour by hourThey fell and faded -and the crackling trunksExtinguished with a crash -and all was black.The brows of men by the despairing lightWore an unearthly aspect, as by fitsThe flashes fell upon them: some lay downAnd hid their eyes and wept; and some did restTheir chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;And others hurried to and fro, and fedTheir funeral piles with fuel, and looked upWith mad disquietude on the dull sky,The pall of a past world; and then againWith curses cast them down upon the dust,And gnashed their teeth and howled; the wild birds shrieked,And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutesCame tame and tremulous; and vipers crawledAnd twined themselves among the multitude,Hissing, but stingless -they were slain for food;And War, which for a moment was no more,Did glut himself again; -a meal was boughtWith blood, and each sate sullenly apartGorging himself in gloom: no love was left;All earth was but one thought -and that was death,Immediate and inglorious; and the pangOf famine fed upon all entrails -menDied, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;The meagre by the meagre were devoured,Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,And he was faithful to a corse, and keptThe birds and beasts and famished men at bay,Till hunger clung them, or the drooping deadLured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,But with a piteous and perpetual moan,And a quick desolate cry, licking the handWhich answered not with a caress -he died.The crowd was famished by degrees; but twoOf an enormous city did survive,And they were enemies: they met besideThe dying embers of an altar-placeWhere had been heaped a mass of holy thingsFor an unholy usage: they raked up,And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton handsThe feeble ashes, and their feeble breathBlew for a little life, and made a flameWhich was a mockery; then they lifted upTheir eyes as it grew lighter, and beheldEach other's aspects -saw, and shrieked, and died -Even of their mutual hideousness they died,Unknowing who he was upon whose browFamine had written Fiend. The world was void,The populous and the powerful was a lump,Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless -A lump of death -a chaos of hard clay.The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,And nothing stirred within their silent depths;Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they droppedThey slept on the abyss without a surge -The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,The Moon, their mistress, had expired before;The winds were withered in the stagnant air,And the clouds perished! Darkness had no needOf aid from them -She was the Universe!"